Category Archives: Food styling and photography

I recently had a great session on food styling for blog photography with a food stylist. We had a great session making these Smoky Baked Beans and Bangers, and I really enjoyed using my Playmobil ghosts to make them feel a bit autumnal and spooky. This would be a nice dish for a Bonfire Night gathering.

I love the dish styled in the gorgeous red enamel saucepan. This was picked up in a charity shop! I have to confess, much as I love a browse in a secondhand store, kitchenware is not something I would have thought of looking for, so that inspired me straight away.

Smokin’!

This is an easy dish to make and perfect for autumnal evenings now the nights are drawing in. Healthy cannellini beans are full of fibre and the dish contains no added sugar, unlike tinned baked beans. Grating the onion, carrot and garlic is a ‘grate’ (sorry) quick tip and means less chopping, obvs.

Smoky Baked Beans

You will need:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, grated

1 carrot, grated

1 garlic clove, grated

1 tsp mixed herbs

Pinch smoked paprika

400g can chopped tomatoes

1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

Cooked mini sausages, and mini pitta breads to serve with the beans.

What to do:

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the onion and carrot and cook for 3 minutes until starting to soften.

Add the garlic, herbs and paprika and continue to cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the tomatoes and beans, bring to the boil and let them bubble for 5 minutes or until thickened.

I recently had the pleasure of spending a day with professional food stylist Rosie Reynolds, who gave me some expert food styling advice for food blog photos. Rosie and I met through work, and she was so enthusiastic about my blog, she came to see me at One-Handed HQ for a Halloween-themed baking, decorating and photo session.

We baked delicious chocolate cupcakes, which we decorated using jelly snakes to make Snake Cupcakes, and with chocolate icing and cola laces to make Spider Cupcakes, which we then had great fun setting up in a spooky Halloween tableau (above), complete with skeletons dangling down, all lit by candlelight. In the words of Miranda: such fun!

Sssssssnake Cupcakes

Spider Cupcakes and Snake Cupcakes: scary

Rosie has a great eye, and one of the best tips I learnt from her was to take the photo and then look at it really carefully on-screen before deciding what to add in or what to remove to get the best possible shot. Make the change, then take another photo, and compare the two. Usually the secret is taking something away to simplify things and let the food take centre stage.

Another great tip is to try to keep the food and the styling as natural as possible – if you’re serving a casserole, for instance, don’t be afraid to dig into the food and swirl it around with the serving spoon, so it looks accessible and yummy. For cakes and puddings, a few crumbs scattered around make it look even more delicious and homemade.

For best results, shoot in natural daylight (these photos were all taken on my iPhone) and think about the background you are presenting the food on – again, natural surfaces are great for such purposes. Wood, tile and slate are good; have you got an old wooden trunk, or some tiles left over from a building project? Even an old door with peeling paint can be great for overhead shots. Sometimes the most unexpected things can work really well. Take a good look through your cookbooks or BBC Good Food and take inspiration from what they use. Pinterest is useful for ideas, too.

We had a great time styling these shots (and eating jelly snakes). I picked up some really useful tips for future posts and I hope you like them, and enjoy the cakes. Of course, they’re very sweet, so a bit of a treat for little ones. I presented them whole to the children and then cut each cake in half as I thought a whole one would be too much for one child. (I was right.) They absolutely loved them – a real Halloween hit!

2. Sift the cocoa into a bowl. Stir in the water to make a smooth paste. Tip in the rest of the ingredients and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.

3. Use two dessert spoons to evenly fill your cake cases – be careful not to overfill.

4. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until your cakes are risen and a skewer inserted into the middle of a cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the icing:

Cream the butter, cocoa and yogurt together until smooth. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar, beat after each addition until smooth. It might be a bit dry, but if you let the mix relax then keep beating it should come together, if not, add a splash of hot water to create a smooth icing.

Divide the icing between your cakes, spread over the surface with the back of a spoon.

Decorate yourself, or get bigger kids to do their own – depending on how good you are at coping with MESS!

Snake Cupcakes: We decided not to ice these, but of course you can if you want to. Simply cut your jelly snake in half, and make a little hole in the side of your cake, using your fingers. Make another little hole on the opposite side of the cupcake to enable your snake to ‘slither’ through the cake – stick the head in one hole and the tail in the other. It’s that easy.

Spider Cupcakes: Spread the top of the cake with icing and use a cocktail stick to prick the icing and make little bumps. Use little sugar balls for the eyes and cut-up bits of jelly snake for eyebrows. To make the dangly legs, cut cola laces in half and tie a little knot at the end for a foot. Use the cocktail stick to make a little hole for each leg.

I'm Kate and Finger, Fork and Knife is where I record the recipes that excite, nourish and inspire me. I focus on wholesome, high-nutrition, home-cooked food - recipes that satisfy and delight. Welcome!